


The one with the vending machines

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gatorade is involved, Gen, Modern AU, the sons of Feanor are just. dumbass teens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 06:49:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19718404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: A series of events as unfortunate as they are really, really stupid.





	The one with the vending machines

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking fic requests on tumblr, to celebrate 1000 followers there!! This one was for @avantegarda, who requested Maglor and Celegorm in a modern AU, being dumb bros. That's it, that's what this fic is.

“You can’t just kick the thing, Tyelko. You have to finesse this shit.”

“I’ll kick what I want” said Celegorm, darkly, and did so. He hopped back on the other foot, muttering angrily under his breath. He collapsed dramatically across the three peeling vinyl seats opposite the bank of vending machines, of the kind most commonly found in designated waiting rooms. “Well what the fuck do you suggest, then?”

Maglor sighed heavily and folded his arms, with a martyred expression. “There’s only one way to accomplish this, and it’s the expert’s touch. I’ve been getting one up on vending machines since before you were born.”

“Weren’t you like, a toddler then?”

“I would have referred to myself as a pre-preschooler, but I don’t want to split hairs.”

“Whatever. And weren’t you too busy being a goddamn viola prodigy or some shit?”

“Viola _and_ harp _and_ clarinet. And for your information, it’s not a _dis_ similar skillset” said Maglor stiffly, relying heavily on his brother’s utter lack of knowledge or interest in musical instruments, giving a wiggle of his fingers for emphasis.

Celegorm rolled his eyes. “Alright then. Work your magic.”

Maglor stepped up the vending machine. _Eyes on the prize_ , he thought. The prize in question being a bag of MiniGems™ gummy candy that had become lodged halfway down behind the glass, apparently resistant to any attempts at the use of force or gravity to move it.

He took a deep breath, gave his brother a nonchalant grin meant to establish dominance, where Celegorm was lying sprawled across the seats looking up with vague interest.

Then he put his hand into the slot of the vending machine, reaching upwards, upwards…he gritted his teeth, as plastic dug into his elbow, arm bending at an odd angle. But he didn’t give up. _It was so close_ ; he could feel his fingertips brush the edge of the plastic packaging.

But no further, apparently. He gritted his teeth in frustration; his arm just wasn’t long enough, was the thing.

Behind him, Celegorm barked out a laugh. “Going great over there, huh?”

Maglor bit back a sarcastic response. He’d show him. All he had to do was pull his arm back, try again…

“Ah!” he yelped at the sudden pain in his arm, as his elbow caught on a sharp, plasticky right-angle. He tugged a little, gasping for air as the plastic bit into him like iron claws.

He heard Celegorm get up behind him. “Káno…? Are you good over there?”

“I’m…fine” he gritted out, wiggling his arm back and forth a little. It was his left arm, too, he thought in a vague panic, already wondering if he would ever play the viola again. “Everything’s fine.”

Celegorm dropped down into his field of vision, kneeling beside him. He looked a little nervous, which in itself was unheard of. “What if I…” he pulled a little, causing Maglor to let out a muffled scream.

“Fucking _don’t_.”

“Uh. Okay, okay, no.” Celegorm looked a little distressed. “Shall I…get Mom?”

“Mom’s giving birth to twins right now! She’s a little busy, I’m guessing!” snapped Maglor. “Or have you forgotten why we’re in this damn hospital to begin with?”

“Or Dad? He’s in there with her, but…”

“…I’d rather you didn’t, honestly.”

“Maitimo, then.” He took out his phone. “He’ll be back from taking Curvo and Moryo to granddad’s house now, I can call him…”

Maglor looked daggers at him. “If you dare phone Maitimo I’ll push you down the stairs, m‘kay?”

Celegorm snorted. “…Not if your arm’s stuck in a vending machine you won’t.”

“I swear to god, Tyelko…”

“Okay! Okay. Um…” Celegorm seemed to be trying to avoid both giggling and sprinting off down the corridor as he paced, looking all around him, as though looking for inspiration. “Um…what do people do in situations like this, like, usually?”

“Uh, I dunno” said Maglor, trying to think. “Put like, grease on it? Maybe?”

“What?”

“To make it slippery. You know, like, I don’t know, some kind of lubri- ” he rolled his eyes, as Celegorm cracked up laughing before he could fully get the word out. “Yeah, yeah, I know you’re in highschool and therefore lube is inherently funny as a concept, but listen. It might work?”

“…I don’t have any, though.”

“Anything liquid?”

“There’s some Gatorade in my backpack…” said Celegorm, recovering slightly.

“Try it” said Maglor, immediately. His arm was starting to hurt even more.

The Gatorade, as it turned out, was sticky and blue and wet on the sleeve of his t-shirt, and did absolutely nothing but make the situation stickier and bluer and wetter than it had been originally.

“No, no, you have to pour it upwards. _Into_ the mechanism!” snapped Maglor, as Celegorm sluiced it over the accessible part of his arm.

“How the genuine, literal fuck am I supposed to do that? That’s not how gravity works.”

“You have to put your arm in too, like…” he tried, vaguely, to demonstrate.

“I can’t. Yours is there.”

“Hhhmm.” Celegorm had a point. Maglor frowned, letting out a small groan as an idea came to him. He kind of hated it, but desperate times called for desperate measures. “In my bag…there’s a clarinet cleaning brush…”

He saw his brother’s eyes widen.

It was not without a wince that he saw the clarinet brush go into the Gatorade, and as he felt it on his arm, he found himself contemplating his life and choices up until this point and wondering how he could have possibly gotten himself into this situation.

Celegorm, however, apparently had no such concerns and seemed to have taken to the idea of painting his brother’s arm with a clarinet brush dipped in Gatorade, like the proverbial duck to water.

Not that it helped, in the end. After all, Gatorade was formulated with electrolytes in mind, rather than its lubricative properties.

At last, even Celegorm gave up, sitting down beside Maglor, propped against the next vending machine along. “All out of Gatorade” he said, mournfully.

Maglor gave a pained smile. “There’s another vending machine behind you.”

Celegorm’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Fuck yeah, I even have the right change!” He stood up, and began punching in the code on the number pad.

“…Tyelko” said Maglor, glancing up at his brother. “That’s not the buttons for Gatorade.”

“Uh, yeah, no offense, but I want those gummies first. …What? I can’t get your arm out if I’m starving, can I? I need my strength! I’ll get Gatorade after, and then – aw, fuck me…! It did the thing again!”

Maglor craned his neck, and groaned as he saw that the bag of gummies had gotten stuck in the vending machine. “We’re fucking cursed” he said, voice hollow. “That must be it. The new twins are going to be born into a cursed family and there’s nothing we can – _no!_ Tyelko, you dipshit, don’t you dare - !” He blinked, as Celegorm tried to pull his arm free from the vending machine, then whined like a distressed puppy when it wouldn’t come loose. “Well, fuck. I guess you did.”

There was a short silence.

“…What do we do now?” said Celegorm, after a while.

Maglor puffed out his cheeks. “Accept our fate, I guess?”

Maedhros was late after dropping off his younger brothers at Mahtan’s house; the traffic had been awful on his way from Moryo’s school to Curvo’s school to the house, and he had been so tired from work that he hadn’t even bothered to stop Moryo kicking the back of his seat, while Curvo carved doodles into the plastic housing of the window with a ballpoint pen. Sometimes, he thought wearily, one has to pick one’s battles.

But now he was finally nearing the hospital. He frowned, glancing down at his phone as he got out of the car. He had called both Maglor and Celegorm earlier, just to check they had made it, and neither had picked up their phones. Not that that meant anything; it was probably the bad signal inside the hospital, he told himself, or the fact that his brothers were just Like That.

It didn’t take long for the nurse to point him to the maternity wing where his parents were, and tell him that she’d sent his two brothers to wait in the waiting room.

When he arrived there, whatever he had been about to say to them died on his lips at the sight he was greeted with.

He blinked a few times. “Káno? Tyelko? What are you two doing? Why do you have your arms in those vending machines? …Is that a puddle of Gatorade on the floor? What the fuck even happened?”

Maglor broke off singing the slow, mournful song that he seemed to have improvised on the spot. Maedhros had caught a lyric that rhymed _Gatorade_ with _tragic fate_. Celegorm had been humming along.

“Uh, nothing” said Maglor, wincing. “It’s Tyelko’s fault.”

“Fuck that” glowered Celegorm, kicking Maglor’s knee, though in a weary, resigned sort of way. “It’s Káno’s fault. Also, Maitimo, what do you say, hmm, to maybe borrowing us some forceps? They use them for babies, but neither of us are in a position to - ”

“I’m absolutely _not_ doing that” said Maedhros, firmly. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “How did you even get in this situation? Dare I ask?”

“It’s a long story” said Maglor.

“No it isn’t” said Celegorm. “See, it all started when we wanted some MiniGems™ from the vending machine…”

Through the open door of the waiting room, across the corridor and through the closed door across the way, they all heard a baby wail. “Welcome to the family, kid” he muttered. “This is literally what it’s like, all the time.”


End file.
